Dissolution
by AndImTheQueenOfSheba
Summary: After the accident, she wasn't the same. He thought he loved the real Miley, but after she left...Oliver discovered that the new Miley, and the old Miley, were both real.
1. Chapter 1

_**Repostage, yeah. I know I'm gonna get sick of explaining all of the new old stuff I'm putting up, so go read my profile, kay? Look at the delete count...that'll tell you why I've decided to repost things.  
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CRASH.

Oliver couldn't tell if it was the thunder outside, or the dishes his wife was doing in the kitchen, but either way, it wasn't good. Loud noises, whether they came from Miley or the heavens, didn't mean good things.

One meant Miley would be forcing him to clean up random tree branches and other people's crap in the morning, while the other meant that he'd be in trouble in a few moments.

The next loud noise was, indeed, his wife, cursing at the top of her lungs. Which told Oliver that it hadn't been the thunder.

"Everything okay?" He called, looking up from his newspaper. Miley appeared in the doorway, wiping her eyes, looking close to tears.

"No. I dropped the casserole. It's all over the floor now. I'm so sorry, I was trying to make something nice for you, and I messed it up. Again."

"Oh." That was all Oliver could say. He wanted to assure her it was fine, but couldn't do it. He didn't like it when she was upset, but he also didn't want the relief, at being excused from this particular dinner, that he was feeling to be too obvious, which would then upset her, when she found out he didn't like her cooking. Truth be told, Miley did not inherit her dad's cooking abilities. The first night in their new house after their wedding, she burnt the ravioli she'd tried to make, and they'd ended up having Pop-tarts instead. Oliver still didn't know how you could burn something you had to boil in less than five seconds, but she'd achieved that.

"It looked kinda gross anyway…" She admitted, smiling at him. his relief must have been more obious than he'd thought. "Do you want me to order a pizza instead?" She asked him, looking slightly less disappointed in herself.

"More than you know." Oliver told her, setting his newspaper down on the coffee table, before getting up to help her clean up the mess in the kitchen.

They mopped up cheese and potatoes together in silence for a while, smearing the casserole all over with the washrags in their hands, before Miley spoke up.

"Do you still love me?" She asked, dropping her washcloth and sitting back, on top of her feet.

Oliver dropped the rag he was holding, in surprise, and, as a lightning bolt flashed across the sky outside the kitchen window, asked her,

"Of course I do. Why would you ask that?" He knew that's what everybody would say in a situation like this, but it was all he could think of. His mind was full of confusion, and "Of course I do. Why would you ask that?" was all that would come out.

"Well…I just…we never see each other anymore…and I keep messing up, and…I don't know what I'm saying I should probably just shut up now." She started rambling on and on.

"Miley." Oliver said, in his serious voice. "All you've messed up is our dinner, and I could live on peanut butter and jelly for the rest of my life if it made you happy."

"I'd probably poison it somehow." She replied.  
Awkward silence.

"I could live on delivery pizza for the rest of my life if it made you happy." Miley laughed at his careful use of the word "Delivery," and picked up her rag again, to finish cleaning up the giant mess in front of her.

"If you only ate pizza for your entire life…you'd get fat…and that wouldn't make me happy. You'd squash me." She told him, standing up to wring out her washrag in the sink.

"Oh, so you're calling me fat now, are you? How about we don't wait for obesity, and I just squash you now?" Oliver asked her, jokingly, as he tossed his own washrag at her, when she bent back down to finish cleaning up.

"I thought you wanted pizza." Miley whispered, as Oliver scooted closer to her.

"..I'll just eat this casserole off the floor." He suggested, putting his arm around his wife.

"That's disgusting." She objected.

"Not if you clean the floors." She looked at him for a second, and started scrubbing the small space in front of her, that she could reach without pulling away from Oliver, with extra force.

"Just don't eat off the ground." Miley finished, setting down the rag and resting her head on Oliver's shoulder. He wrapped both arms around her, tightly, and squeezed her, like he wasn't going to let go.

"Do you really think I don't love you?" Oliver asked his wife, after a moment passed.

"No…I just…I'm afraid that someday…you're gonna tell me no when I ask you if you do." She told him, burying her face in his chest.

"That's impossible." He said, simply, spinning his washcloth around on the floor with his finger.

"Is it?" Miley asked, closing her eyes.

"How could anybody not love _this?_" He asked, pinching her side on the last word. Miley shrieked, and scooted away from him for a second.

"How about we go out tomorrow? To lunch or something. Or to see a movie. Like old times."

"Traci wants me to go to her book club." Miley told him, dejectedly.

"Traci doesn't read." Oliver replied, laughing.

"It's a book club Oliver, not a Literature class."

"She can live without you."

"And you can't?" Miley asked, burying her face into the crook of his neck again, and waiting for the answer she already knew.

"Not a day." Oliver assured her, wrapping his arms around the love of his life, once more.

...

"Are you sure you don't want to leave?" Miley asked her husband, as they made their way through the local mall, in search of whatever would make Oliver the most bored. Or so he thought.

"Are you kidding? This pretzel is AMAZING! I need another one!" He replied, biting into the second of the two giant soft pretzels he'd bought in the food court. Miley just shook her head and laughed silently at the strangeness of her husband.

Oliver took extra small bites of his pretzel, knowing fully well how long he'd have to savor it in order to live through the boredom that would ensue while following his wife through the mall. They had went in nearly every store, at least, it seemed that way to Oliver, and were checking out one last store before heading back down to the first floor.

"What do you think of this one?" Miley asked Oliver, holding a silky red blouse up to her chest.

"I don't know. It's not really my color. How about this one?" He held up a much lower cut shirt, smiling at her.

"Very funn-" She stumbled, nearly losing her balance. Oliver reached out to steady her, and she clutched his hand for a second.

"You okay?" He asked, worried, as he swallowed the last molecule of his pretzel.

"Yeah. I'm fine. I just..." She let go of his hand, and rubbed her eyes, before returning the shirt to it's place on the rack.

"Let's go. I need to get something to eat." Miley told her husband, before grabbing a hold of his hand and dragging him out of the store. Not that there was much dragging involved. Oliver had secretly wanted to leave since the second they'd arrived at the mall.

They headed towards the escalator, so as to find the food court and get Miley her dinner, and Oliver his third pretzel.

"How long have we been here?" Oliver asked, as they started descending on the giant escalator placed conveniently in the exact center of the mall, far from any and all exits.

"Umm...three hours?" Miley guessed, yawning, while she looked at her watch.

"It went by kind of fast."

"Mmhmm." She mumbled, as she massaged her temples.

"Something wrong?" Oliver asked, putting his hand on her back.

"I just have a headache. It's nothing." She told him.

Clearly, it wasn't nothing, as just then, her knees gave way, and she crumpled, right then and there on the escalator. Since it was moving, and because of the angle she'd fallen at, her limp body started to tumble down the moving staircase, before Oliver, or anybody else, could grab her.

Oliver watched, in shock, as she fell down the last section of the escalator. She looked like a bowling ball, only all of the bowling pins were jumping out of the way.

She hit the ground at he bottom, and Oliver's brain finally came back to him. He screamed, and ran as quickly as he could, without tripping and falling himself, to the ground below where Miley was stretched out, bent at the stomach, with her left arm twisted beneath her, and the other wrapped around her stomach, like it was trying to protect it. There was a small gash on her forehead, but even though it was small, it was bleeding profusely.

"Oh my god, Miley!" Oliver yelled, as he fell to his knees next to her. He grabbed a hold of her shoulders, and desperately tried to shake her awake, but nothing happened.

"Wake up. Wake up Miley, please, baby wake up!"

Still nothing.

"Somebody call 911!" The only other person standing nearby that seemed to care about what was going on, yelled. Then, chaos erupted; Everybody seemed to realize what had just happened, and the room exploded in sound. Nearly everybody just watched from a distance, but there were a few random people that came up to Oliver, and wanted to help. He just shooed them all away, not wanting to let anybody near his wife.

...

Oliver, Lilly, Robby and Jackson sat in the waiting room at the local hospital, waiting for the doctor to come out and tell them what was happening.

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god." Oliver kept repeating. It was clearly annoying everybody else, because Robby and Jackson gave Lilly, who was sitting closest to Oliver, a look that told her to do something, so she reached out and grabbed his wrist.

"Oliver. She's gonna be fine. You have nothing to worry about." Lilly assured him.

"How do you know she'll be fine?" He asked, slowly turning his head, so as to see her face.

"I just do. She's clumsy sometimes. She's hurt herself hundreds of times, and she's still alive. It just happens Oliver. That's why we have doctors."

"I thought we had doctors so that somebody could laugh at people in pain without getting criticized." Jackson added to the conversation.

"Well, that too." Lilly replied, nodding her head. "She's gonna be fine, Oliver. You need to just calm down. You guys won't be able to make out in the elevator on your way out of here if you're freaking out." She joked. Robby gave Lilly a funny look, and, while Oliver still didn't look assured, she continued. "Look at Mr. Stewart. He's fine! He- uh...he cut that cord thingie that was sticking out of her stomach when she was born, and he's fine. He knows she'll be okay."  
"It's an umbilical cord, Lilly." Mr Stewart informed her.

"Yeah, that. But my point is, everybody but you knows she's going to be fine. Even Jackson, and he doesn't know much else."

"Hey!" Jackson objected. "Look who's talking, Stephen Hawking."  
Oliver looked up at the three members of his second family, inconspicuously, in a completely masculine way, wiped his eyes, and said,

"She'll be okay. She's gonna be fine." She had to be alright. Oliver already knew he wouldn't be able to live without her. He'd make sure she was perfectly okay. Lilly had finally assured him that nothing could go wrong. She'd leave this place, with Oliver, like nothing had happened.

"Mr. Oliver Oken." An authoritative voice called. It had to be the doctor. The doctor was going to tell Oliver that she was fine, and they could go home, and do whatever they wished. They could fill the bath tub with nacho cheese, and make love in it, for all he cared. The doctor was going to tell him that. The doctor was...not smiling.

"Mr. Oken?" Oliver nodded his head, scared to death of what the doctor was going to tell him.

"I'm sorry, but..."

"You said she'd be okay!" Oliver interrupted, yelling at Lilly. She flinched at the sound of his outburst, and shrunk into her chair, pulling her knees up to her chest. "She told me she'd be okay." He told the doctor, much more quietly, in a completely horrified tone of voice.

"Mr. Oken, your wife is fine. She was dehydrated. She broke her wrist, and one of her ribs, but she'll be just fine." The doctor assured him, picking at the edges of the clipboard in his hand.

"Oh...well then, what did you say you're sorry for?"  
The doctor looked guilty. Doctors usually didn't look like they were actually sorry for you, but this one did. He looked as if he were sorry for something he himself had done. Or maybe something he hadn't done.

"Your wife is fine...but your baby is not."


	2. Chapter 2

_**Yay second chapter! Really really short second chapter...but second chapter none the less!**__**  
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"It-she, when? She didn't- HUH?" Oliver rambled, ultimately confused. Miley couldn't have been pregnant. If she had been with child, she would've told him. These doctors didn't know what they were talking about.

"Your wife was pregnant, Mr. Oken. Unfortunately, the fetus couldn't survive the fall. We tried all we could. "

Oliver didn't want to look at Lilly, Jackson or Mr. Stewart. He didn't want to see their faces. Oliver just wanted to take his wife, and run away. Somewhere far far away, like Zimbabwe, or Jupiter, where he wouldn't have to see people. People that were once babies. People that were once short.

"How...how far along was she?" Oliver whispered, not wanting the others to hear him.

"A little more than two months." The doctor answered, before staring down at the clipboard in his hands.

The shock that had permeated Oliver was replaced with anger. She had to have known. Two months? That was seven months from a baby. Six if you're young and walk a lot.

Why hadn't she told him? That's what Oliver wanted to know. Just the day before, she'd complained about how they never spent time together, how she messed things up all the time. She'd asked him if he still loved her, all the while holding a secret like this.

A nurse came up to the doctor and talked to him, while Oliver stayed stationary, turning red, from his head to his toes.

"Here. She wants to talk to you." The doctor interrupted, before steering Oliver in the direction of room 114.

The first thing Oliver saw when he came into the room was the bedspread. It was a bright, happy, yellow color. It was cheery, and happy, when, in fact, the people in the hospital weren't. Oliver didn't think that anybody in a hospital would feel any better seeing that bedspread. It just meant that whoever made it was happy, and uninjured, while the person using it wasn't.

The second thing Oliver saw, was his wife, and the utterly devastated expression consuming her face. He'd never seen her look this traumatized. She looked as if she'd seen her own father decapitated right in front of her.

"Ollie...Ollie it..." She whispered, "Ollie...it's dead. I killed it." She looked up at him, her expression staying stone. Oliver ignored her crazy ramblings, and moved closer to her.

"Why didn't you tell me, Miley?" He asked, sitting down on the edge of her bed, reaching for her hand. She let him take a hold of it, but didn't squeeze it back.

"I just found out...yesterday..." She mumbled, closing her eyes. "I was going to tell you, but I didn't know how...so I decided, today, I would..." She stopped and looked up into Oliver's eyes. "Oliver!" She cried, bursting into tears. "I only knew for one day! I should have..."

"Miley. It wasn't your fault. Don't blame yourself. It's mine, more than anyone else's. I shouldn't have refused to give you any of my pretzel." She didn't smile, as he had intended her to do. He was not quite sure what to say to her, in this particular situation. Neither Oliver, nor Miley, as far as he knew, had ever lost a baby before. Oliver only knew one, live, person that had ever lost a baby, and that was one of his distant cousins, whom he was sure, was the spawn of Satan.

He knew that Miley's mother had lost one, a couple months before she'd died. Neither Jackson, nor Miley herself had ever been told about that, but Mr. Stewart had told him. He had told Oliver that he was afraid the same thing would happen to Miley, and that Oliver should make sure she was always safe, that she did things right, for the sake of her future children. Well, she hadn't. Oliver hadn't done his job.

"It's not your fault. It's mine. I'm a murderer." Miley mumbled.

"Hey. Don't say that. It's NOBODY'S fault. Nobody's perfect, you know that more than anybody else." Oliver assured Miley, patting her shoulder  
lovingly. "How about we get you out of here, and we go see a movie or something?" Miley shook her head no. "Okay, then how about we go home, and I make you a delicious meal, using all of my intense gourmet cookery skills, and we...take a bubble bath together? Bubbles! Sound fun? Let's go." He didn't wait for an answer, and went to go find the doctor.

Moments later, Miley was picking out colors for her cast. Well, she mostly sat there, shaking her head every time Oliver showed her a color.  
"What do you think of this one?" He asked, showing her a teal color, on the cast swatch. Oliver knew she had a bunch of shirts that color. She must like it at least a little, so when she illegibly shook her head, either yes or no, he couldn't tell, Oliver told the doctor to go ahead with the teal.

Several minutes later, the couple came back into the waiting room, where Miley's family was still waiting.

"Aww, Miley, I'm so sorry." Lilly exclaimed, quickly rushing to give Miley a huge, suffocating hug. "It'll be okay. Do you need anything? Food, maid services, anything?" She asked, her question directed to Oliver, seeing as Miley was temporarily unable to say anything, with her face buried in Lilly's shoulder, and so many tears streaming down her face that she wouldn't be able to talk anyway.

"No. We're okay, I think. We're just gonna go home now, but...maybe this weekend or something, you guys could go out for lunch?" Oliver asked Lilly. She shook her head in approval of the idea, and patted Miley on the back some more.

"Does that sound okay, Miles?" Oliver asked. He felt like he was speaking to a little kid. She'd been demoted to child, going through all this. She was acting like one, crying like one, helpless like one.

"Yeah...let's just go." She mumbled, pulling away from Lilly, while wiping her eyes. Oliver reached for her hand, and they made their way to the lobby, to check out.

Moments later, they were in the parking lot, heading to their car, which Robby Ray had drove over, from the mall, for them.

Oliver helped Miley into the passenger seat, and reluctantly left her to go to the driver's side. After making sure she was buckled in - Oliver was going to make sure she was as safe as possible from now on- Oliver started the engine, and begin the journey back home.

"Do you still want to go to Laci's wedding tomorrow?" Oliver asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

Laci Swanson was the youngest daughter of Hannah's record producer, and one of Hannah's best friends. Laci was planning on getting married the following day, but she had a tendency to break things off at the last minute. She'd been engaged four times since Hannah had known her, and only one engagement seemed to be working. Laci wasn't very considerate of other people's feelings, but her sense of humor seemed to make up for it, and everybody loved her.

"Ummm, I...uhh..." Miley mumbled, not giving Oliver an answer.

"How about we just go to the reception? There's a good chance she won't go through with this, and there won't even be one. We need to get out of the house more often. We need to go on with our lives." He didn't mean to sound insensitive, but she seemed to take it that way.

"Fine." Miley agreed, turning to look out the window, the tears intensifying.

...

Later that night, Oliver attempted to make Miley a nice dinner, and, surprisingly, it turned out pretty good. She didn't smile, or thank him or anything, but she ate it quickly, and got herself some more of it.

Oliver quickly stuffed the dishes into the dishwasher, while Miley laid on the couch, staring at the wall across from her.

"Miles? You still wanna take that bubble bath?" Oliver asked, softly, afraid of making her mad.

"Srrmm" She replied, her voice muffled by the pillow she had her face buried in.

Oliver took that as a yes, and helped her to the bathroom, where she sat on the edge of the large jacuzzi bathtub, with her head down.

Oliver turned on the small radio resting on a table in the corner, and turned the volume down low. Next, he plugged the drain, turned the water on, and added the bubbles, before turning to help Miley pull her shirt over her head. He found himself staring, as he helped her undress. He'd seen her naked countless times, but it wasn't until now that he realized how her body had changed, in the past couple of months. He couldn't believe he hadn't noticed. Even the bruises couldn't hide how freshly pregnant she looked.

Oliver grabbed Miley's outstretched hand, the one that wasn't in the cast, as she climbed into the bath tub. She settled into the tub, resting her head against the edge, and closed her eyes.

Oliver stripped down next, and climbed into the tub too. Miley leaned forward, so that he could nestle himself into the tub behind her. He lovingly, cautiously, wrapped his arms around her waist, as she burrowed her head into his neck, swing her injured arm over the side of the tub, to keep it from getting wet, and finally relaxed.

The two of them sat, in the peaceful, serene bathroom, by themselves, trying to relax, and remove the day's tragedy from their minds. Unsuccessfully.

...

At the wedding of Laci Swanson and Travis Garver, people were pleasantly surprised, when everything seemed to be going as planned.

Hannah Montana, and her beau, Mike Stanley III, were to be found at a table in the back of the reception hall, after the ceremony. Neither said much, and she had not smiled during the entire thing. People found it especially strange, considering Hannah was one of Laci's best friends, but they felt sympathy for her, having heard rumors of a death in the family. Some people said it was her brother, others said it was her grandmother, but both were wrong.

The bride eventually found her way over to the table her friend was sitting at. She'd bugged Hannah about being the maid of honor for months, but Hannah had refused, telling her that she should let her sister do it instead.

"And so I told him, I said, "Travis. There will be no song about statutory rape playing at my wedding." and he started whining about it, saying it wasn't about that, and it was a good song, yadda yadda yadda." Laci said, laughing, as she tried to tell Hannah stories that she didn't care to hear about.

"I'm just very relieved now. We had a scare a couple of months ago that would've set this whole thing back, and who knows if I would've gone through with it." Laci whispered, to Hannah and Mike.

"What kind of scare?" Mike asked, trying to be social, since his date was being the opposite.

"Oh, well...I thought I was pregnant." Hannah stiffened in her chair, still staring at the centerpiece, like she had been the entire time. Mike grabbed her hand, and squeezed it, trying to comfort her. "I wasn't, which I'm very happy about." Mike could see Hannah bite her lip, out of the corner of his eye. She tightened her grip on the glass of wine she'd been holding, but not drinking from, for an hour. Miley didn't usually drink, and therefore, neither did Hannah. She'd taken the wine, out of courtesy, but, even though she could drink from it now, she didn't.

"Not only would I have had to get my dress let out, but, you know, I'm not the motherly type. I don't want a baby." Laci told them. Hannah's expression changed from one of annoyed boredom, to one of anger. "They're so...cranky...and they poop all the time. I don't know what I'd do if I got pregnant. Probably give it away." Laci confessed.

At that last sentence, Hannah angrily ripped her hand out of Mike's, stood up, and poured her glass of wine onto the bodice of Laci's wedding dress, before rushing out of the hall, leaving both her friend, and her "boyfriend" sitting there in shock.

Miley and Oliver had decided not to pretend Hannah and Mike were married. They figured that somehow, it would get out that they weren't, and, not being real people, Hannah and Mike's marriage would not be a legitimate, legal one. It was easier to pretend that they were only dating.

The remaining guests at the Swanson-Garver wedding all stared, in surprise, at the red stain on Laci's wedding dress, and the hallway Hannah had disappeared down.

"What the hell!" Laci yelled, standing up. "What is her problem?" Oliver quickly grabbed a stack of napkins, and gave them to Laci, to help clean up the wine, which, surely, would stain her dress. She ripped them from his hands, attempted to soak up the wine, and threw them back on the table. "That whore just ruined my wedding dress! Does she have any idea how expensive this is?" She yelled, angrily.

"Hey!" Mike yelled at her, fed up. He had never liked Laci, but he'd pretended to, for Hannah's sake. He'd always thought she was a rude, cold-hearted bitch, but he didn't have the heart to tell his wife that.  
"She's not a whore, she's my wife, and for your information, she just lost a baby, so I suggest you either go apologize, or get the hell away from us!" He yelled at her, before pausing, in realization. "That was really loud..."

Now, not only would the entire United States population know that Hannah had tossed her wine on Laci, but, thanks to Mike, they would know of the baby, and the marriage. Oliver would be in huge trouble when he got home.


End file.
